


It started with Tea

by Gidgit2u



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: EWE, F/M, Friends to Lovers, One Shot, Post War, Tea, dramione - Freeform, slight ron bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 07:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17803598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gidgit2u/pseuds/Gidgit2u
Summary: Hermione and Draco run into each other post war, and Draco gets a chance at redemption.





	It started with Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadiePhoenix007](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadiePhoenix007/gifts).



> This was written for LadiePhoenix007 in 2016, one of the most wonderful, supportive and delightful humans I've been fortunate to meet through the world of fanfic and tumblr. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot, this is JK's sandbox and I just play in it.

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

He wasn't proud of the thoughts he'd had over the years, the beliefs he'd held, the words that had spewed like liquid trash from his lips. He was ashamed of how easily childhood grudges, jealousy and what - at the time - he'd believed was true hatred, could inflict such wounds, such damage.

The day she'd been tortured, there on his floor, he'd seen. Her blood ran as red and as fluid as his own and he'd known. Known how wrong he'd been, how wrong all the fanaticism and insanity was. And he'd felt a devastation that struck him to his marrow.

That was the day, the moment, the  _fucking_  impetus, that altered Draco Malfoy forever.

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

"Watch where you're going!" An exasperated voice said, barely dodging the two children running haphazardly out of the shop she was entering. "You're not a pair of hippogryffs!"

The bell dinged over the door as she entered, and the young man felt his heart skip in his chest.

He hadn't seen her since his trial, just shy of two years prior, and he felt his palms begin to sweat at the possibility of conversing. The certainty of imminent acknowledgment.

"How may I help you today, Granger?" He asked, politeness personified, keeping himself still as she whirred around at his voice by the till.  Despite knowing he should tack on a prefix of some sort, for proprietaries sake, but... well, she'd always been just Granger in his mind.  An entity, all to her self. It seemed wrong, somehow, to sully that with a Miss, and thankfully not a  _Mrs_...

"Malfoy... I didn't realize... you work here...?" She trailed off, her pseudo question hanging in the air and in the minuscule pauses between her words, he noticed.

The bags under her eyes, hidden by a poorly spelled glamour. The way her shoulders appeared to carry an invisible weight, dimming the fire that usually crackled around her very essence. She seemed to have aged by years yet also appeared as fragile as a girl half her age.

He knew why.  Unfortunately, so did most of the Wizarding World.

"Was part of my parole," he shrugged - a self deprecating movement - and offered a small half smile. "I found I quite enjoyed it, so stayed on. Found I have an affinity to potions, and discovered the sourcing and cataloging to be soothing."

She stared at him, eyes almost unblinking as he spoke.

A muscle twitch began in the right corner of her left eye, and he could make out a smudge of ink just under her jaw line, back toward her left earlobe. She scratched the ink spot, making it spread and adding to her aura of discombobulated persistence. He bit back a grin at the innocence of the moment.

He'd been waiting years for this, to talk with her. To...  _see_  her.

And now she was here.

"Is there something I can help you find? Is this for work... Or... pleasure?" He asked again, his tone now carrying a slight caress of silk when she made no attempt to speak, nor move from where his initial greeting had halted her in her stead.

His words - or tone - seemed to jar her into action and she gave her head a quick shake.

She blinked. And then...

She grinned. Quick as lightening and brief as an eclipse but it sliced across her lips none the less and he felt his breath catch.

It was more than he could have ever hoped for.

He'd made her smile.

"Pleasure..." She said, moving toward the till where he stood. "Though sadly, not my own. I'm helping George work out the kinks of the latest invention for the shop, which is based on notes Fred..." Her mouth grimaced and her voice caught slightly, and his hand involuntarily flickered as if to provide comfort before remaining where it lay atop the transaction counter.

"Fred left behind?" He asked softly, finishing for her. She nodded, her eyes bright, and he pulled out a thick tome from under the counter. Opening it to what appeared to be an arbitrary page, he trailed a long finger down the right hand side until he rested on some figures scrawled almost ineligibly in black ink.

"Eye of newt, salamander skin and red skull mushroom tails." He read off. "George sent an owl this morning, saying a courier would be by later to pick them up." Her eyebrow came up and he couldn't help the slight smirk that pulled at his lips.  "We chat quite often these days, Granger, due to our lines of work, but I had no idea you were his courier.  Hadn't heard that you even worked with George. I thought you were still at the ministry."

He leaned in slightly, dropping his tone somewhat, "and frankly, I'd assumed..." He broke off, then plowed ahead with what he was going to say.

"I'd assumed after what happened with the  _other_  one, you'd be well shot of the Weasleys?" His face wasn't derisive, but openly curious.

Hermione sighed. "They're family." She said simply, shrugging as if that explained it all. She shuffled a bit, then glanced around the shop.

"I suddenly find myself parched, and in need of an afternoon cuppa." She said.  He'd expected the brush off, as polite as it was, her deflection didn't surprise him.  He couldn't deny his disappointment, but knew their moment was over.   He turned away to package up George's supplies.

And then she shattered any notion he had that he knew anything about her at all by asking, "Care to join me Malfoy?"

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

They sat in a muggle tea house, a first for him.

Not because he thought himself above such a place, or the people that pattroned it.

No, he'd overcome that poignantly obsessive bigotry that day in his drawing room. Cleanliness, though, was something he still was particular about, and was pleased to note this establishment was up to his standards.

It was a first for him as he'd never known a place like this existed. Though desperately curious since his revaluation about how the 'other side' lived, but not knowing how to navigate their world, Draco had held himself back from venturing into the muggle world and their culture without a guide.

He was still a Malfoy, and thusly never liked to appear ignorant.

Masks and filters and all that rubbish.

They sat there, at their table for two, doctoring their tea to their own desires and making piddly small talk as they whittled away the awkwardness.

"I forgave you, you know." She said quietly, leaping over the topic of weather and into deeper waters. She stirred her cup - two sugars with a skiff of cream - like a potions cauldron. He watched, fascinated at her motions. "You were a right shite to us in school - though not so much to me past second year as you were to Harry every year - you were the loudest bully with the most clout..."

He grimaced, knowing how terribly he'd treated his classmates, especially the 'golden trio' and moved to speak but she cut him off.

"...But you were just a pawn, like all of us children were during the war. A silly, brainwashed, spoiled-rotten pawn." She looked up at him then, and her brown eyes - the color of freshly tilled earth, never  _mud_  - seemed to pierce him to the core.

Softly, her words almost a caress, she said, "Pawns aren't meant to move out of turn, and only in one direction. But when it really counted Malfoy, when it looked like all your childhood taunts and desires could be met by identifying us... You moved out of turn. You stepped up and proved you weren't a pawn anymore. And I forgave you all and everything in that moment."

He started, slack jawed as she tentatively reached across for his hand, his hand that cradled his teacup with whitened knuckles and a stiff wrist. He unlocked his fingers at her touch, her warmth seeping in and thawing the winter of his soul, and he turned his fingers to entwine with her own.

His mouth tasted of bile, remembering the smell of burning flesh as his aunt mutilated her arm with her curses and her wand.  His heartbeat quickened as he reflected upon that day.

He was surprised she let him touch her, so fucking lacking as he was.

"I could see it, when I was being tortured. I glanced at you when she was carving up my arm, throwing me around, crucio after crucio, and I could see you shattering right along with me. I heard Ron screaming for me from below, but it was that sight of you that gave me strength. I saw  _you_ , Draco, the scared desperate child behind the mask, and it propelled me. Gave me the strength to survive. To outwit. If you could live with that monster and defy him, I could outwit his psychotic lieutenant."

He jerked as if slapped, hearing his name fall from her lips. Like sun melted butter it slid over him, draping him in warmth.

And then her words penetrated and he stared at the woman across from him in awe.

"You were, are, fucking amazing Granger!" He croaked out, absently rubbing his thumb against the side of her hand.

"Hermione," she said simply, with another lightening-quick eclipse of a smile. 

"Hermione," he said, then grimaced. "Do you mind... Granger just feels, right, against my tongue..."

A slight nod, an even slighter smile of acquiescence. It felt rather intimate, almost like a nickname... even, an endearment.

"Oh, I'm sure you can still be a shite, a compulsive snob, still probably spoiled-rotten by your mother," she continued with a smirk, and neither of them acknowledged his father, though the omission was as loud as if she'd shouted Lucius's name, "but that doesn't make you a murderer, nor does it brand you evil."

She took a sip of tea, one handed. A drop remained on her upper lip as she lowered the teacup, and it was all he could do not to reach across and wipe it away for her. "Nor does it make me permanently hate you, which, for the record I never did. Just strongly disliked your actions."

"You should," he said and tightened his hold on her hand, marveling at how tiny it felt in his own, yet feeling the power almost vibrating from it. "I believed what I spewed, whole heartedly, for years. I was so sure I was right to hate you, right to think muggles and muggleborns were filth that I never stopped to question..."

He stared at their hands, resting on top of the table, clasped to each other as if to a lifeline. Stared and felt the familiar cloak of shame rest upon his shoulders.

"I can't believe you're actually here, that we're talking, I've wanted for the last two years to thank you ..." He murmured.

She waved her hand at that, flicking away his thanks like a fly, but he persevered.

"It was your testimony, yours and Potters, that kept me out of Azkaban. That kept my mother on house arrest and not moved to reside behind bars. I couldn't--" Here his voice broke. "I wouldn't have blamed you had it gone the other way... But I won't lie and say I'm not forever grateful. I would have said something sooner, but I didn't know how...I didn't know how to thank you. How do you go about thanking someone for saving your life when you did nothing but torment them for years?"

"This tea is a start." She murmured and he felt something shift, settle, in his chest.

A start, she said. A start.

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

They met at random times in random spots over the next few months, sometimes on a whim and sometimes planned out in advance. She became his unofficial guide to all things muggle, and he enlightened her to all the rites, traditions and intricacies of the Pureblood Society she'd been denied knowledge of or exposure to.

Every time she learned something new of their world he felt proud to be the one who'd broadened her knowledge base of the world she so clearly belonged in.

Tea was a constant between them.  They'd meet up in various muggle tea houses and in countless Wizarding establishments throughout the UK.

They visited to the London zoo, various Muggle historical sites and museums, and Hermione even introduced Draco to a muggle library - after which, he in-turn, opened the doors and let her loose to the Malfoy library. 

He didn't see her for hours.

It would have been  _days_  had he not promised the doors would remain open to her henceforth, in order for her to join him for dinner.

She introduced him to muggle food, he was able to get her on a broom.

They grew closer, dancing around feelings unvoiced.

They created a little bubble around their budding acquaintance, keeping the world at bay. But despite their shared camaraderie, she also kept him at bay, an invisible curtain keeping him separated. He desperately wanted the curtain to part. But he knew, instinctively, and she needed time, needed to feel safe.

He worked very hard at making her feel safe.

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

"Ron blamed me," she blurted out one day as they sat in the Malfoy library, practicing random charms they'd discovered in an ancient tome.

They sat across from one another, books piled between on the table, parchments with revised incantations from their trials littering the floor.

Draco stilled, knowing that her next words were what the Wizarding World was in desperate want of knowing. Understanding how hard the next words would be for her after months of growing closer, of  _knowing_  her.

After years spent surreptitiously watching her behind his mask.

She toyed with her wand, eyes downcast, as she said, "He blamed me for years for so many things, some in my control, others out of it. And I let the guilt of that eat at me... For years, starting in school even. He blamed me for my cat, my need for control, blamed me for not saving Fred, which is a load of bloody hippogryff dung, as what could I have done? I was a student for Merlins sake! He blamed me..."

She stopped, pausing - it appeared to him - to shore up her armor.

"He blamed me for not being enough. That's why he ultimately left, why the prophet is having such a fantastic time cataloging his exploits.  He's having the time of his life, you see, and he wants the world to know it. And for them to know that it's not with... me. He said I wasn't enough for him, that I'm too boring, too controlling, too bossy. I worked too much, I wasn't 'proper wife' material, whatever the fuck that means. Nor mistress material even... I left my career at the ministry for him, a pitiful attempt at appeasement. I tried to make it work, to be what he said he needed, but it wasn't enough... He still left in the end. I wasn't enough..."

Draco expected her eyes to be sad, to be a bit bright at this revaluation and reached in his pocket for a handkerchief.

But when he went to hand it to her he noticed that instead of sadness, an air of defeated anger shrouded her instead.

' _Fuck_!' He thought viciously, ' _She truly believes she wasn't, isn't, enough_.'

It angered him that she believed what lies the red-headed Weasel had fed her.  That despite all her brilliance and talent and... everything that made her uniquely and wonderfully  _her_ , she still thought herself inferior.

"He's a bloody tosser," he spat, "and you're well shot of him. Of course he left, but not for those reasons Granger, not exactly." He shook his head in disgust, and she looked at him quizzically.

Draco sighed, exasperated that the smartest witch of their age could be so dense when it came to her moronic ex and blind to her own strengths. Granted, he'd also been jealous of her strengths for years and done what he could to tear them down as well.

Didn't mean he didn't admire what he'd sought to destroy.

"Granger Granger Granger..." He said shaking his head. "He knew he'd never measure up and so it was easier to pull you apart instead to make him feel better about himself. Think of the witches the prophets have linked him to since you've split. Young, naive and easy to feel superior to. With you, he'd never have that chance, and he knew it. He's always known it, any fool could see that."

He was warming to his subject now, his voice growing bolder and didn't notice her eyes begin to shine in a different light as he spoke.

"You never took shit from anyone, Granger, despite the fact you'd have probably had a more socially agreeable time if you had let some things slide. And you were top of every class, even ones you didn't even take, despite all the years of tutelage us Purebloods had in those subjects since the age of 5. You just waltzed in and trounced us all. I was so fucking jealous and yet secretly, impressed." He coughed.

She arched a brow.

"Not that I would have ever admitted that at the time," he grinned and was gratified when an answering grin flashed across her face.

"And as for you not being 'proper wife' material, well... If that means staying at home and raising his brats and sacrificing your dreams then no, you are not proper wife material, as I see you using that brain of yours for grander things than cleaning charms and recipe creation and changing nappies."

"There's nothing wrong with..." She began but he waved her off.

"No there's not Hermione. My mother was a home wife, though of a vastly different elevation and stature than Weaselbee's. Mother's career was our family, the estate, and our reputation. And I wasn't slamming Weasels mother either.  You have to give that woman her due, she took down my psychotic aunt single-handedly  _and_  can dance circles around me when it comes to managing a household.  But you..." He eyed her baldly. "You could have the world. Despite how backwards S.P.E.W. was - "

"You know the correct name!" She exclaimed, astonished.

"Of course I do," he said, his genetic haughtiness infusing his words. "Know thy enemy and all that..."

"Anyway," he continued, smug that he'd been able to genuinely surprise her, "you have brains, you have drive and you're a bloody heroine. You could make real change. And if you became a mother too, well, that's just icing, but only to a man not the Weasel. One that would honor you as a human and not just a brood mare."

She moved to speak and he held up his hand.

"And on the mistress front, of course you're not mistress material." Something fractured in her gaze at that, and he mentally cursed, feeling months of progress on the edge of collapse . He moved to sit beside her, and moved his finger to tilt her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his.

"Silly Granger." He said gently, and took a chance, dropping a kiss on her nose. "Mistresses are to be kept hidden. Any wizard lucky enough to share your bed should show you off like the Crown Jewels - never hidden. Should be proud to be on your arm, warming your bed, sharing your time. You,  _Hermione_ , are the sun to my perpetual night."

She beamed.

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

She met his mother, a stilted awkward encounter that fostered little in the way of a possible budding friendship, but their affection for the same blond wizard kept their talons dulled and sheathed.

He met Hermione for drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, and endured the company of her friends, minus the conspicuous absence of one member of the 'golden trio'.

Ginny--no longer Sheweasel--put him through the ringer that first night, Lovegood twitted dreamy nonsense while shooting verbal darts, Longbottom sat there muted and glaring, and Potter... Potter waffled between antagonistic and curiously blunt.  It went as well as he could have hoped.

By the third of such outing, wands were left at their sides, forgotten, and he'd begun willingly entering into conversation with most, and in time, with all. He'd even buried the hatchet with Potter, seeing as he was Hermione's best friend and all, and would thus be in her life permanently.  She'd insisted, on more than one occasion, that he was the brother she'd never had but always wanted.  As an only child himself, how could he begrudge her that?

Draco was tolerated by most, welcomed by a few, and he enjoyed winding some of them up and just chatting Quidditch with others.

Hermione was happy and flourishing.

That was enough for him.

She met his friends one sunny afternoon, at a Quidditch match he'd dragged her to. She'd only accepted, in part, due to him suggesting Ron would lose a knut knowing she was attending a game he couldn't afford, but would have sold his right hand to attend.

Spite was a giant and fantastic motivator. Draco didn't mind what motivated her as she snuggled into his side, both watching the players as they flew past at breakneck speeds.

She held her own among the snakes, and when it came to light how many rules the 'rule-abiding swot' had actually broken during their school days - and how many laws during her year on the run - Blaise loudly declared her acceptable company, and Theo began asking her opinion on this and that, debating merit and theories to subjects typically held tight to his chest.

Draco knew this was as good as sorting her green and silver, and his stomach unclenched. No words of hate were thrown, no reference to wars fought. Pasts were left buried, and they moved forward as young adults free of the shackles of their forefathers.

The girls however, Daphne and Pansy and Millie, were all slower to come around, and Hermione more prickly in their presence.

He did what he could to shelter her from the knife's edge of Pansy's sharpened tongue, but he needn't have worried. Hermione could give as good as she got, and in any other house but his own, it wouldn't have made her any friends.

"I've never been great with girls," she said. "Too many variables, too many moods. I'm too blunt and obtuse, Ginny says."

Female hostilities and grudges being what they were, it took just over a month for Pansy and Hermione to come to terms with each other.  A begrudging truce and respect grew between them, and the other girls followed suit, laying down their emotional weapons and declaring peace.

For all that was rosy, for all that had changed, Draco and Hermione were still Malfoy and Granger. 

They still fought, constantly. 

Fire and ice colliding.

Despite this, she told him it was different than the fights she'd endured with Ron. These challenged her, motivated her, infuriated her.

Turned her on.

Oh how he relished hearing that, and he never held back, in any area of their relationship.

But especially not in that one. 

He worshiped her as she deserved to be worshiped. 

Their first time was in the Malfoy library, following a heated row over some nonsense neither remembered afterward, their breaths labored and parchment and books spread around them like fallen leaves.

Later, in the supply closet at Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes, after she'd shown him her latest contribution, he demonstrated how proud he was of her.

Very, very thoroughly.

**Ooo-XxXxXxX-ooO**

Theirs was a partnership, in the truest sense of the term, one that grew stronger over their years together.

Never dull, never yielding.

They pushed each other, supported each other, as friendship turned to friends-with-benefits turned to a full-fledged relationship turned to enduring love.

And years later, when asked by his children what had ultimately brought their parents together - as no one could deny that even years later they were still fire and ice personified - he glanced away reminiscently and said, "It all started with a spot of tea."


End file.
